Missing youth adventure group turns up safe in Sierra

Nine teenagers and two adult guides who were missing on an adventure trip in the Sierra south of Yosemite National Park were found safe this afternoon, the Fresno County Sheriff's Department said. Three of the people are from the Bay Area.

Four girls, including two 16-year-olds from East Palo Alto and Alameda, five teenage boys and two adult hikers, including a 30-year-old San Rafael man, showed up about 2 p.m. at a store near Florence Lake, about 15 miles outside a search area in the Sierra National Forest, said Deputy Christian Curtice, sheriff's spokesman.

Sheriff's deputies and volunteers had been searching for the group since Tuesday. It was unclear whether members of the group realized that they had been reported missing, Curtice said.

A sheriff's helicopter flew over the store and confirmed that everyone was accounted for, he said.

The teenagers and their guides left June 14 from Courtright Reservoir in the Sierra National Forest for a two-week outing sponsored by the wilderness adventure group Outward Bound, Curtice said. They were believed to have enough provisions to last through this Friday.

The group left from the Maxon Trailhead on the east side of the reservoir. They were last seen Sunday in the Burnt Corral Meadow area about 3 miles northeast of the reservoir.

The hikers were planning to climb Mount Shinn about 2 miles north of the meadow area. One of the three adult guides left to see if it was possible to climb the peak, and they agreed to meet at Red Rock Basin several miles northeast of the meadow later Sunday, Curtice said.

The lone adult guide arrived at the rendezvous spot, but the rest of the group did not show up, Curtice said.

The guide searched the area for two days on his own before contacting the Outward Bound's base camp in Midpines. The group in turn contacted the Sheriff's Department on Tuesday.

Since then, about three dozen sheriff's officials, volunteer mountaineers and the mounted posse had been searching a 90-square-mile area, along with a helicopter, Curtice said.